|
|
Northern Suburbs of New York City, USA
|
|
|
|
Early Tele Mods: 
Here's my first Tele, a highly-modded 1971 (see shot below of what it
origianlly looked like). It has an early 70s Gibson Humbucker (with 'Gibson' imprint), a Strat pup and the stock bridge Tele pup. It also has a real
Fender-issued Bigsby (which I later sold, like a dork). The body effect was achieved by...take a deep breath...burning off the original finish with a
blowtorch!!! I sanded it, stained it and polyurethaned it (Nitro? Are you kidding?). Quite a workhorse...
|
| |
Here's the next incarnation of the Tele above. I designed my own body (walnut, if I remember correctly) by tracing a Gibson 335 and shrinking it
down. Pretty much the same hardware as above, with three single toggle switches instead. The top inset is my first attempt at making a body, which
was basically a traced Tele with a Framus Texan 12-string neck. The bottom inset is the next version, with the same 335 shape. It was actually the prototype for the Tele/335 version.
|
| |
Left to right: Me in 1972, with my installed Gibson Humbucker in the neck
position, which I believe is the same pickup I used in my current 'FrankenTele' pictured at the bottom of the page. The second shot is me with
my custom Tele 12-string and in the third shot, I'm playing my 72 Tele in 1977, modified as described in the top photo. Ahh, the 70s...nice hair, eh?
|
| |
1973 maple neck Tele which my pal Kirk did a lovely job of nitro-refinishing for me in amber! The "Ambercaster" has a Gibson reissue P-90 pickup in
the neck position, a '57-'62 Strat Vintage RI pickup in the middle, and a vintage '52 bridge pickup. It had a '73 bridge with StewMac compensated
saddles which was changed to a B5 Bigsby in June, 2003, a 5-way switch, a small toggle switch on the control plate to throw the middle pickup out of
phase, and a Les Paul jack plate. I always have this one tuned to open-E for slide, etc. It's a killer...
|
|
| |
This one is a custom Chandler sunburst-with-cream-binding body with a 1978 Fender rosewood neck I had special ordered back then. The photo
makes the binding look a little odd, but it isn't really. It has a 30-year-old-or-so Gibson Humbucker with the original "Gibson" imprint in
the neck position, a '57-'62 Strat Vintage RI pickup in the middle, and a Vintage Tele RI bridge pickup (as I recall). It also has a 6-way adjustable
bridge (Jazzmaster type), a 5-way switch, and a small toggle switch on the control plate to throw the middle pickup out of phase. I recently put the
Bigsby on it and, amazingly, it's still got it's 'spank'! And, yes, it's the same Tele gracing the top of the TeleModders banner...
|
|
| |
|
|
Ooops, I almost forgot the most traumatic aspect of my Tele modification adventures. You may notice that the '71 Tele
neck above suddenly morphed into a '78 Tele neck. Here's the reason: sometime after I built the 335-shaped body, I thought that it might be cool to refret the neck myself. Totally bad idea! While
removing the original frets, I completely destroyed the fret slots, thus rendering the neck useless. I was so distraught that I hid the neck away so that I wouldn't have to look at it.
Eventually, I came up with a solution...I turned the headstock into a paperweight! If nothing else, every day I get to work with a Tele on my desk! <The ultimate Tele mod...my patented Tele headstock paperweight!
|
|
| |
| |
Page
1 | 2 |
3 | 4 |
|
